Newly-adopted minimum standards for concentration advising, including the signing of student study cards by advisers that students know by name, were released by the Committee on Advising and Counseling this week.

Along with the new standards, the committee, which had been inactive for several years, took the unusual step of releasing the data from the 1997 senior survey relating to concentration advising.

Calling the new standards "a modest beginning," Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 said he hopes the combination of the new standards and the senior survey data will prompt inter-departmental conversations about the "very decentralized" advising system.

Though the standards are not Faculty legislation and are therefore non-binding, Lewis says he hopes the collaborative process of creating the standards will help to improve the general campus culture surrounding the advising system.

"The most useful and cheering part of these data is their lack of consistency," Lewis says, noting that this demonstrates that there is nothing inherent in departmental size or even student/Faculty ratios that prevents good advising from taking place.

Although the data does not provide any overwhelming pattern separating the natural sciences, social sciences and fine arts, it does offer a snapshot of student experience from department to department.

"This is an attempt, while respecting autonomy, to recognize that variety is OK, but we can observe that some ways of doing things are more successful than others," Lewis says.

Generally, the concentrators in biochemical sciences and religion departments give strongly positive ratings in most categories. But most students in English and economics give their departments poor scores.

While the minimum standards are not Faculty legislation and the committee does not plan to introduce them, Lewis says these standards represent the general consesus of the Faculty as they were constructed with the help of comments from every department.

"I do expect departments to act on the standards," Dean of Undergraduate Education William M. Todd III writes in an email. "Not all of our departments yet meet them."

The Standards

The 12 new standards, which Lewis stresses are meant to be a mimimum and not an ideal, are separated into two categories: five address the content of advising conversations and seven the format.

The content standards include the identification of the students' academic interests and a discussion of how those interests can be best addressed in the curriculum. In addition, the advisor and student should discuss concentration requirements, summer and post-graduate opportunities.

The minimum standards for the advising format include: the existence of a student file in which comments are recorded, two conversations a year between students and advisors, having advisors informed about concentration requirements and appointment of a new advisor if the current advisor goes on leave.

"No one could object to the standards themselves," Lewis says.